Portraits: Lil Fouc

This is not Lil Fouc. It's a free stock photo.

There was a time when weary scholars sitting under the bougainvilleas of the university shopping complex sipping tea spitting hot-ass political fire could see Lil Fouc jumping around the place begging for pets and petty treats. Well, not anymore. Lil Fouc is now the best boy in the University of Hyderabad, the sovereign king of the ladies' hostel complex.

Born to a mongrel bitch, he was no poet's inspiration. His daily struggle did not make it to the market of commodified feelings; his mother left him alone to raise another batch of pups within a year of his birth and his upbringing, therefore, was haphazard and no one had the time to turn their heads away from their protests and debates and talks and demonstrations towards a tiny boy sitting in a corner observing and learning about histories of many oppressed peoples.

It is no surprise, then, that his vocabulary became that of resistance. He began to bark in feminism, growl in communism and whimper in poignant ambedkarism. Unlike most people who tend to forget the velivada during the offseason, Lil Fouc really did sleep there every night until his adulthood, thinking every night about dogs' eternal dependence on humans, so much so that it ended up with him hanging from a branch of a tree much in the fashion of the mighty Odin allfather, about whose pursuit of wisdom he'd learned from an overheard conversation between two postgraduate students.

Needless to say, it ended badly for Lil Fouc. After nine days and nine nights, he lay senseless on the ground, his gums bleeding from the heavy biting and his neck almost broken into two. Lucky for him, two students who were coming out of the woods after having smoked a joint or two found his almost dead body and were bewildered to witness first hand the pathetic state of animal rights in the campus. It was clear as day that the dog was abused and left there to die by some sadistic monster.

Agreeing that the dog deserves justice and deciding to make it their singular occupation, the two high bros took to social media and made appeals to the university community to come out for a most unfortunate dog. Lil Fouc battled for his life, and the students battled for his rights and the rights of his kind at the same place at the shop com where he grew up. Upon his return, he was accepted into the LH complex and allowed to recover at his own pace.

It has been many months since the occurrence of this chain of incidents and Lil Fouc roams the LH complex free like a dog. His dream of emancipating his kind remains a dream, but he did succeed in securing a future for himself. He’s pawned his soul. He hasn’t visited the ghetto where he grew up even once. Lil Fouc might be the king of the LH complex, but the author has lost interest. Fuck him.